The field of the invention pertains to devices, systems, and methods for enhancing the depth perception of a viewer in a two-dimensional image.
The present invention provides a device, method, and system for enhancing depth perception of the viewer in the viewing of two-dimensional images of all kinds, including photographs, posters, drawings and paintings, signs, etc. as well as television and motion pictures. In this broader respect, a distinction should be made between stereographic devices and methods which require two separate two-dimensional images of the same scene, sometimes combined, superimposed, or overlaid in a single two-dimensional image, and the extraction and reconstruction of binocular images of that scene for the viewer who has the capacity for stereopsis; and the present invention, which, by stimulating retinal disparity in the viewer, so enhances the perception of the monocular cues for depth in a single two-dimensional image as to convert the viewer's perception of such monocular depth cues to an experience of the fused binocular depth cue of stereo vision. The stereographic devices have been well known for many years, while the principle underlying the present invention, although not yet completely understood, is newly presented in this application. The subject of depth perception in viewing two-dimensional images as it applies to “depth perception of images on a television screen” has been discussed in LeMay, U.S. Pat. No. 5,488,510, but not with respect to depth perception in two-dimensional images generally, such as photographs, posters, paintings, signs, etc. The present invention is distinguishable from LeMay, which uses a window screen type mesh in a device to be worn by a viewer through which a two-dimensional television image is viewed, and creates, according to its inventor, an “illusion”. The present invention does not create an “illusion”, but provides the experience of the binocular fusion of retinally disparate images, and employs the viewer's capacity for stereopsis to enter the experience.
The present invention should also be distinguished from the well known effect that is observed with monocular viewing (with one eye) of a two-dimensional image with monocular depth cues against a flat background without such cues. The same effect can also be observed by monocular viewing of a two-dimensional image at the end of an enclosed space. With such a viewing the monocular depth cues in the two-dimensional image become significantly pronounced, albeit seen with only one eye. Such monocular viewing, however, deprives the viewer of the accommodation reflex which occurs with binocular vision that gives the viewer the ability to accurately focus on the two-dimensional image. The result is that although with such monocular viewing the monocular depth cues in the two-dimensional image have an effect greater than if viewed binocularly, the two-dimensional image cannot be seen with the same degree of focus as if seen binocularly. The present invention, on the other hand, induces a retinal disparity in the viewer that results in a fusion experience, and can be seen binocularly with the accurate focus of the accommodation reflex. The accurate focus in turn heightens the fusion experience, and thus the enhancement of depth perception afforded by the present invention.
The classification that applies to this invention is generally in U.S. Class 359, “OPTICAL: SYSTEMS AND ELEMENTS”, but the only subclass titles that provide a verbal similarity are 462, “STEROSCOPIC”, and 478, “RELIEF ILLUSION”, the descriptions of neither being applicable to the theory of operability of the present invention.